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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAnderson in Town & City 021805Texas Municipal League Board of Directors President Judson F. Williams, Mayor, El Paso ist Vice President L. O'Brien Thompson, Commissioner, Amarillo 2nd Vice President Erik Jonsson, Mayor, Dallas Immediate Past President Walter W. McAllister, Sr., Mayor, San Antonio Past President Robert Willis, Jr., Mayor, Livingston Past President Louie Welch, Mayor. Houston Regional Directors 1-(Consolidated in Region 4) 2-L. O'Brien Thompson, Commissioner, Amarillo 3-R. C. Vaughan, Mayor, Levelland 4-Marvin C. Holcomb, Councilman, Odessa 5-James M. Davis, Alderman, Wichita Falls 6-11a1ph Hooks, Mayor, Abilene 7-Melvin Rowland, Mayor, Uvalde 8-C. Y. Rone, Mayor, Azle 9-P. M. Johnston, Councilman, Waco 10-Hubert Gorubec, Mayor, Granger 11-William L. Ellis, Jr., Mayor, Aransas Pass 12-John J. Stephens, Mayor, Weslaco 13-R. J. McInnish, Mayor, Carrollton 14-Alvin D. Haggett, Mayor, Galena Park 15-Dr. N. D. Geddie, Mayor, Athens 16-Walter J. Breaux, Jr., Alderman, Lakeview Directors-at-Large Erik Janssen, Mayor, Dallas Walter W. McAllister, Sr., Mayor, San Antonio DeWitt McKinley, Mayor, Fort Worth Louie Welch, Mayor, Houston Judson F. Williams, Mayor, El Paso VOL. LV, NO. 7 JULY 1968 TML Legislative Committees Begin Work...... 6 Airport Labor Decision Favors Cities 6 S&P Bond Rating Policy Modified 7 State Airport Aid Program Briefed 7 Modernizing Government to Build Tomorrow's Cities, by Judson F. Williams _ 8 5th Mayor-Council Institute Is Largest 9 Waco-Profile of City Renovation 12 Municipal Administration and the Library, by Fritz Lanham 15 DEPARTMENTS Classified Department 26 Calendar of Coming Events------------ 27 News Notes - 28 COVER (and photographs beginning on page 8)-Fifth Biennial Institute for Mayors, Coun- Departmental Directors cilmen and Commissioners, June 6-8, 1968, in El Paso. Program participants pictured on J. B. Nickells, Mayor, Luling-Association page 8, left to right: Mayor Morris L. Newnham, Ranger, president of the Assn. of Mayors, of Mayors, Councilmen and Commission- Councilmen and Commissioners-, problem-solving panel-Riley E. Fletcher, general counsel, ere Texas Municipal League, speaking, and Wm. A. Olson, city attorney of Houston and panel R. B. Sherrill, City Manager, Richardson- tY Y Texas City Managers' Association moderator, standing, with Morris Newnham, Mayor J. E. Chisholm of Littlefield, R. T. R. L. Hancock, Asst. Director of Utilities, Gregory of the Texas Transportation Institute of Texas A & M, and J. A. Houston, director Austin-Municipal Utilities League Doren Eskew, City Attorney, Austin-Texas of personnel and civil service, Waco; Speaker Ben Barnes, Texas House of Representatives, City Attorneys' Association with son F. Williams, mayor of El Paso and TML president, in foreground; fop Fred D. Winter, Director of Finance, Beau- mont-Municipal Finance Officers Asso- ,phi o at_right-R. regory and R. B. Sherrill, city manager of Richardson; bottom photo ciation at itjht-Mayo?°frid~J0nss n of Dallas, Mayor W. W. McAllister of San Antonio, and Steve F. E. Murrell, Assessor-Collector, Waco-' Texas Association of Assessing Officers i atthews, executive director f TML.... Participants pictured on page 22, top to bottom: Sam Granata, Jr., Director of Public Works, ayor D. A. Anderson of ollege Station; Charles Bartlett, tax consultant, Dallas; Al San Antonio-Texas Public Works As- San 0 ma or of ith sociation Wm. A. Olson, seated foreground; luncheon head table J. Abe Houston, Director of Personnel and including Al Koebig, Ben Barnes, Mr. and Mrs. Judson Williams, Morris Newnham, and Civil Service, Waco-Association of City Personnel and Civil Service Officials of Mayor George Boyce of Mesquite; George Boyce; Mayor J. E. Chisholm of Littlefield. . ' Texas Top photo, page 23: L. O'Brien Thompson, commissioner, Amarillo, and J. A. Houston. John Richardson, Chief Planner, Fort Worth -City Planners' Association of Texas Mrs. Margaret Larsen, City Secretary, Hurst -Association of City Clerks and Secre- taries of Texas J. W. Golden, Chief of Police, Richardson -Texas Police Chiefs' Association Published monthly by the TEAS MUNICIPAL LEAGUE, 801 Vaughn Building, Austin, Alva B. Stem, Director of Parks and Rec- Texas 78701. Telephone GReenwood 8-6601. reation, Waco-Texas Municipal Parks Subscription rate $3.50 per year (plus 3% tax). Single copies 35 cents. and Recreation Association Second-class postage paid at Austin, Texas. James E. Lewis, Fire Chief, Mesquite-Texas Fire Chiefs' Association This publication assumes no responsibility for statements made by contributors in Mrs. Lillian Bradshaw, Librarian, Dallas- signed articles. It is not operated for pecuniary gain. Texas Municipal Librarians' Association Editor G. deGRAFFENRIED, JR. Circulation Manger ......................................MRS. MARGARET PARDUE Executive Director Modernizing Government Today (Continued from page 8) On, R by the officers of the state county association, there appears real hope for revitalization: "As we see it, the counties of Texas have two choices. They can continue to flounder themselves in a sea of indecisiveness and allow the cities, school dis- tricts, water districts, soil and conservation districts, and all other taxing bodies to gradually deplete coun- ty duties and their responsibilities or they can assert themselves as valid governmental entities-willing and able to provide the many services that our modern society demands." The statement went on to recommend the creation of a strong statewide association as the method by which counties could assert themselves as more effec- tive governmental units. This suggestion for revitalizing the counties-the creation of a strong association of county officials with a paid staff-may be an over-simplification. The im- portance of the statement rests upon its admission that the counties are not doing too well today and its acknowledgment of the fact that they could be- come major surveyors of the services needed by the modern urban society. Once the existence of a problem has been admitted, the possibility of developing an acceptable solution is greatly enhanced. Explosive Change We are living in a wonderful period of explosive change. We must be everlastingly engaged in an effort to outguess the impact of unpredictable change. Never before in history has so much experience become ob- solete so fast. Daily, it becomes more evident that yes- terday's answers are increasingly unrelated to today's problems. Tremendous break-throughs in knowledge are oc- curring; public management cannot afford to lag. Public problems need creativity; the more imagina- tive the better. Never before have so many expected so much of their local, state, and national govern- ments. In 1854, Henry David Thoreau, who managed to make every word count, commented on the headlong progress of the communications revolution. "We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas," Thoreau wrote, "but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to com- municate." Since Thoreau's time, this irony has become sharp- er. Despite the vast augmentation of media and tech- nology, one of the most pervasive problems today is the lack of genuine communication. The young don't trust anyone over 30, the hip put down the square, and whites and blacks pull further apart. There are generation gaps, credibility gaps, rich-poor gaps, racial gaps; it sometimes seems that there are more holes than cloth in the fabric of our society. And when we do try to talk across these gaps, we often find ourselves shouting at the top of our voices. TEXAS TOWN & CITY The language we use-like the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat-is increasingly polluted. Columnist Russell Baker of the New York Times, a perceptive and sometimes sardonic observer of the American scene, invented a singular institution of advanced learning which, if it really existed, would be also graduating a class this week. According to Baker, this imaginary institution called Billingsgate Academy caters to the widespread aspiration among Americans to be as churlish, insulting, and abusive as possible in discussing national problems. Its school emblem-rather different from our own rampant em- blems-is a clenched fist in a loud mouth. Baker quotes the headmaster as saying, by summing up the school's mission, "We take them in as hopelessly civ- ilized men, and turn them out as absolute pigs." The decline in rational discourse which Baker sat- irizes has serious implications. Without modern mass communications-radio and newspapers-there could have been no Hitler. But, by the same token, without television there could not have been the swift shap- ing of American civil rights legislation in the last few years. Depending on how we use our incredibly pow- erful communications media, we can save or destroy our nation. On the positive side, we have begun to realize that it is possible to direct some of this change consciously. We cannot manage the world. And I for one am glad it is impossible, for I find the thought of a totally planned economy, a totally structured and managed world, repugnant. Managing the "Unmanageable" What we need to be attempting is to create situa- tions which are manageable. One of the objectives of planning is to gain that crucial margin of time, in- formation, and analysis that makes an "unmanage- able" problem more manageable. Somewhere in his writings, Emerson advises young people to be very careful in deciding what they want most out of life-for they are likely to get itl A sim- ilar, but qualified principle applies to planning: se- lect our objective carefully, for if it is limited enough we are quite likely to achieve it. I use the term "limited" not in the sense of limited in size and scope, but limited to what is possible. And, in the minds of most business leaders I talk to, what is possible tomorrow, is a great deal more than was dreamt of yesterday. This includes a larger role for business than was previously conceived of. I know of few things more hopeful for the future than the growing attention of the business community to some of our outstanding current problems, which include the problems of local government. We are now experiencing a basic reorientation in American values and the kind of "capital" goods peo- ple want. One of the fundamental questions in long- range planning is the "way of life" for which a coun- try stands. The whole community must have a say in what kind of riches they want. In the final analysis, the United States-and most of the rest of the rapidly urbanizing world-is going JULY 1968 23 to be a very strange country indeed if the problems of local government are not resolved within a reason- able period of time. Local government is the heart and brain of an in- dustrial society. Today, you and I can buy a house, but we cannot buy, an attractive city. You and I can buy a car, but we cannot buy an efficient highway. You and I can pay tuition for a son or daughter to go to college, but we cannot buy an educational system. The community-collectively small or collec- tively large-buys these public goods: school systems, road systems, cities, suburbs, pollution control systems, transportation systems, and more. And, despite the increasing share of our money spent for these things, we still have greater freedom of choice and get more for our money in our private, individual choices of house, car, and college, than we do in the public section. We find ourselves indi- vidually rich, yet publicly poor. The businessman must now take the initiative in developing new approaches and alternatives to these problems, because the only real solutions imply an accelerated development of under-utilized resources and a new era of structural change directed toward a higher order of economic efficiency. Dual Responsibility Business and government must share the responsi- bility for government modernization and restructur- ing. Modernization, by whatever definition, is a means by which successive generations of Americans improve their responsiveness to the changing times. Businessmen should no longer look upon city hall as unimaginative keepers of the municipal store. Cities today deal with the very life of the community. These include: employment opportunities, poverty, shelter, environment, movement of goods and people, leisure- time activities, and educational as well as convention- al housekeeping services. Cities have been literally transformed into catalytic agents. An entrepreneurs of social and economic de- velopmental activities and as leaders of change, mu- nicipal corporations are one of the biggest businesses in town. City hall isn't the same anymore. There is a growing awareness among businessmen of their social responsibilities. The desire to make a contribution to society has been highlighted by readi- ness of businessmen for local government service. The typical mayor is seeing a lot more of his business leaders these days. What are they talking about? Such gut issues as: jobs, housing, manpower, re- training, mental health, education, pollution, crime, slums, transportation, etc. These efforts at defining the real problems, helping the city to mobilize its total resources and modernizing its organizational capabil- ities to focus its response, are indeed outstanding ex- amples of the new era of corporate community. The nation's business world has been encouraged to work toward the modernization of `state and local government, thanks to two efforts launched in 1967 by the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. I invite you to inquire into this massive effort. Each program pack- ages a wide variety of suggested improvements. The principal thrusts of the recommendations are 24 to permit greater structural and financial flexibility and higher levels of technical competence. Some of the local government recommendations are: joint ex- ercise of powers of authority, the lifting of bonded indebtedness limitations in the state law, intergov- ernmental relations, strengthening the appointed ex- ecutive concept, and extraterritorial powers. Democracy cannot stand indifference. The message comes through loud and clear. There's a job to be done in our cities through restructuring and modern- ization of government that will permit the change from frustration and controversy to achievement and satisfaction. And, so there you have it. The 1968 municipal en- terprise. We can have one in each of our areas. It's hard work to assemble and harder to keep in good operating condition. It will take leadership, brains, cash and courage. But, it's worth it. Positive Philosophy Local government in this country has many things to be thankful for. One of them is the presence of the American free enterprise system. Another is that the exponents of this free enterprise system care enough about the quality and responsiveness of its local gov- ernment to keep it modern. Perhaps one of our greatest needs is for the new semantics and symbolism which will permit us to talk about power "with" rather than power "over." De- mands for the right to carry out cooperative activity are perceived as demands for coercive power and au- thority. People need to work together rather than control each other. There is really little possibility of a revolution if by revolution one means that one can change totally a set of cultural attitudes. It cannot be done. The more this approach is tried, the more likely it will end up with exactly the same sort of society as at the beginning. A culture can only be changed in an evolutionary way: the culture must be taken where it is and a new cultural shoot grafted onto it. The obvious problem is that powerless people are not very tolerant of the necessity of evolutionary change. Therefore, the people who are most willing to bring about change tend to reject the one feasible method of achieving change. There isn't a great amount of time left. There is a necessity that the change from a society of coercive authority to a society of shared power become visible. If we cannot see this shift, we will move irreversibly toward a fascist police state. No one wants a fascist police state. In my opinion, there are really few evil men around. Our problem is stupidity rather than evilness. People are being forced by events. We will continue to be forced into more and more evil stances unless we make some changes in our socio-economic systems. Each of us, therefore, confronts the question in this critical year as to whether we will participate in cre- ating the better world which is within our grasp. If we fail to act, we will seek the degeneration of the American people. If we act, we can participate in our improvement. TEXAS TOWN & CITY